title

The emergence time and flight routes used by lesser horseshoe bats of Radziechowy colony (Poland)

author(s)

Warchalowski, M., Pietraszko, M.

affiliation

University of Zielona Gora (Zielona Gora, Poland)
University of Wroclaw (Wroclaw, Poland)

bibliography

Theriologia Ukrainica. 2019. Vol. 17: 64-70.

DOI

language

English, with Ukrainian summary, titles of tables, captures to figs

abstract

Lesser horseshoes are bats quite strongly attached to their roost sites and are considered as sedentary species avoiding long-distance migration. In Poland, the range of occurrence of the lesser horseshoe bat is restricted to mountain areas, where they prefer overgrown mountain streams for their feeding grounds. Due to these features, even seemingly small habitat changes are likely to have serious implications for maintaining local subpopulations of this rare and endangered species. In Radziechowy village, where trees were cut in the Wiesnik stream (bat feeding area), a change in the use of feeding grounds by lesser horseshoe bats was observed. This publication additionally describes the time and the manner of departure of bats from their roost. The study was conducted before the logging (2012) and immediately after the logging (2013–2016), near a church, from the most beneficial point. The study was conducted by a team of 2-3 members, starting each time 15 minutes before sunset and finishing after the bats departure. Lesser horseshoe bats avoid light and open space and they leave their roost in a complicated way. It is established that there is a statistically significant correlation (r = 0.992, p< 0.001) between sunset and emergence time of bats from the roost site. In this paper, during the emergence time, the weather influence was observed. On a cloudy day, an earlier emergence time was observed — 9 minutes after the sunset, while the average emergence time for all observations was 23.3 minutes. The conducted detector watches proved that bats most likely use the closest environment of the colony within a radius of 150–200 meters. Lesser horseshoe bats were observed in ditches of roadside trees, dense hedges and backyard orchards overgrown with apples and pears, which is typical for this species.

keywords

mountain streams, emergence time, sunset, flight routes way, detector research.

references

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